A potential buyer may search (e.g., through an Internet) for merchandise through a variety of mechanisms (e.g., querying a search engine, querying a merchant website, etc.). In addition, a seller (e.g., a merchant, a trader, etc.) may offer merchandise for sale through the variety of mechanisms (e.g., by listing on search engines, trade websites, etc.). The seller may not be able to offer his/her entire inventory for search to a potential buyer (e.g., due to financial and/or operational reasons).
A search engine provider may execute a search (e.g., based on the query posted by the potential buyer for a particular merchandise) by querying a finite number of sources (e.g., online merchant stores, web pages, etc.) within a finite amount of time (e.g., as set and/or determined by the search engine provider). However, all the sources may not be able to respond to a search engine query in the allotted time period (e.g., due to internet traffic congestions, slow servers, delay in response time, etc.). As a result, the potential buyer may have limited options (e.g., due to a limited data set provided by the search engine provider) to form his/her decision. The potential buyer may also have to wait for the entire duration that a search engine takes to execute its search.
In addition, the search engine may generate a sizeable response (e.g., large number of items) to the search engine query posted by a prospective buyer. The potential buyer may not have the time and/or skills to analyze and/or process the sizable response to reach an informed decision. Moreover, the potential buyer may be presented with options that might not be to his/her liking (e.g., the search response may have obsolete items). As a result the potential buyer may decide to postpone and/or call off his/her purchase decisions.